32S CLASS REPTILIA. 



*' Hie, quae prima caput movit de pulvere tabes 

 Aspida somniferam tumida cervice levavit. 

 Squammiferos ingens hcBmorrhois explicat orbes ; 

 Natus et ambiguse coloret qui Syrtidos arva 

 Chersydros, tractique viafumante Chelidii; 

 Et semper recto lapsurus limite cenchris 

 Pluribus ille notis variatam pingitur alvum, 

 Quam parvis tiuctus maculis Thebanus Ophites ; 

 Concolor exustis atque indiscretus arenis 

 Ammodytes : spinaque vagi torquente cerastes ; 

 Et Scytale sparsis etiam nunc sola pruinis 

 Exuvias positura suas, et torrida Dipsas ; 

 Et gravis in geminum surgens caput Amphisbcena : 

 Et natrix violator aquae Jaculique volucres, 

 Et contentus iter cauda sulcare pareas ; 

 Oraque distendens avidus spumantia Prester ; 

 Ossaque dissolvens cum corpore tabificus Seps ; 

 Et in vacua regnat BasUiscus arena." 



Pausani9.s relates the history of a King of Arcadia, who, 

 having been bitten by one of the venomous serpents of 

 which we are speaking, died of a general gangrene. Am- 

 broise Pare, the founder of French surgery, who notices this 

 reptile after the Greek historian just cited, names it le 

 pourisseur, and joins it to another serpent which he calls 

 coule-sang, because, according to Avicenna, its bite, followed 

 by a sudden gangrene and vomitings, gives rise to a flow 

 of blood through the nostrils, mouth, eyes, anus, vulva, &c., 

 all which is exactly referable to the hcBmorrhois of the 

 ancients. 



According to them, the hypnale, or asp, caused death in 

 producing a lethargic sleep, and Solinus, after Nicander, attri- 

 butes to it the death of Cleopatra. The chelydri exhaled 

 nausea-exciting vapours ; the ammodytes concealed itself in 

 the sand ; the acontias, or jaculus, fell like an arrow on the 

 passenger from the tops of the trees. The same was the case 



